Joseph Jude Lykins

Joseph Jude Lykins died on May 9, 2026 at 60 years of age in Tucson, Arizona from a heart attack. He was born November 9, 1965 in Cincinnati, Ohio to James and Elizabeth Lykins, the middle of three children. He graduated from St. Xavier High School where he was a top hurdler, and from Xavier University where he earned a degree in Physics. After a year of graduate school in electrical engineering, he realized his true passion was medicine, and went to the Medical College of Ohio-Toledo to earn his MD. During residency in Phoenix Arizona, he met his wife-to-be, Jane Skelton (Lykins) at the pool of their apartment complex. She was a resident at a different hospital and 2 years behind him, but during a 2 week period when they were both rotating at the VA, their hospital romance rivaled those on “Grey’s Anatomy”. After finishing his training in 1998, he worked as an Internist in Payson, Arizona, and then settled in Tucson, Arizona in 1999 as a Hospitalist at St. Mary’s. He proposed to Jane at the end of 1999 at the base of a volcano in New Zealand, and they were married on May 5th, 2001 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. He was a loving, devoted husband and they celebrated 25 years of happy marriage just 4 days before he passed. In 2003, they welcomed the first of their beautiful sons, Jude Lykins, followed by Gabriel Lykins in 2005. They moved back to Cincinnati to be closer to his extended family from 2003 through 2009, where he was the Director of Hospitalists at St. Luke’s West in Kentucky. In 2010, they moved back to Tucson, and he returned to St. Mary’s where he worked until switching to Northwest Hospital in Tucson in 2024.

Joe was a brilliant, careful, and respected physician who once worked 23 days in a row saving lives during COVID. He was also a loving, attentive, and silly father. He taught his sons as many of his secret skills as he could in the years he had with them, including electrical work, plumbing, car mechanics, landscaping, carpentry, and even the demolition of a dishwasher. He was an assistant scout leader for Jude’s Boy scout troop and went to every one of Gabe’s theater performances. He taught by example with his meticulous methods and perseverance to finish whatever he started.

Joe was a life-long cycling enthusiast and a natural athlete, but cycling became his passion in 2011. He rode in fourteen El Tour de Tucson races, eight of them with his brother, Jim, and three with his son, Jude. He competed in several gravel, road, and mountain bike races each year, including Belgian Waffle Rides, the Whiskey Off-road, the Sea Otter, the Leadville 100, and many others. He loved talking about tires and power meters and life with his many cycling friends, and Jane loved being his nutritionist, aid team, and photographer for his rides.

Joe was a dichotomy of the most charming traits: He was humble, kind, thoughtful, and easy-going, but he also had a hidden competitive side and could not let himself be beat in a ride up a hill or in sudoku puzzle times. He walked slowly and with intention, but he ran and cycled like a lightning bolt. He was cautious and careful and took a conservative approach with all his decisions, but he didn’t mind flying over the handlebars on the hardest mountain bike trails and descending Mt. Lemmon on his road bike at 49 miles/hour. He could solve life’s trickiest problems before others even understood the question, but he allowed others time to figure it out themselves and would never tell them he knew all along. He thought deeply before speaking and spoke softly, but he had a quick, dry sense of humor that he slid into the conversation with perfect timing. He was a joy to be around and will be missed by so many.

He is survived by his loving wife Jane Lykins, his sons Jude Lykins of Colorado and Gabriel Lykins of Tucson, his brother James Lykins (Susanna Sammons) of Maryland, and many aunts, uncles, and cousins around the country.

He is preceded in death by his mother Elizabeth Lykins, his father James Lykins, and his sister Linda Lykins.